Apperception
Apperception
(Lat. ad + percipere, to perceive) (a) In epistemologyThe introspective or reflective apprehension by the mind of its own inner states. Leibniz, who introduced the term, distinguished between perception, (the inner state as representing outer things) and apperception (the inner state as reflectively aware of itself). Principles of Nature and of Grace, 4. In Kant, apperception denotes the unity of self-consciousness pertaining to either the empirical ego (“empirical apperception”) or to the pure ego (“transcendental apperception”), Critique of Pure Reason, A 106-8.
(b) In psychologyThe process by which new experience is assimilated to and transformed by the residuum of past experiences of an individual to form a new whole. The residuum of past experience is called the apperceptive mass. Cf. Herbart, Psyckologie als Wissenschaft, Part III, Sect. I, ch. 5. — L.W.
In Kant(1) Empirical apperception (Ger. empirische Apperzeption). The consciousness of the concrete actual self with its changing states; sometimes, simply, the “inner sense”. (2) Transcendental apperception (Ger. transzendentale Apperzeption). The pure, original, unchangeable consciousness which is the necessary condition of experience as such and the ultimate foundation of the synthetic unity of experience. (See Kantianism). — O.F.K.